Sunday, July 26, 2009

It's been a month since I started playing an involving adventure game "Get a root password for a weekend" with a very large multinational consulting company.
That quest requires carrying out a complex sequence of actions, each of which is unknown in advance. A single error leads to a failure and necessity to start all over again. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Now I am almost through 2nd attempt. And I almost failed again.
So, to get a root password you have to:

No less than in 2 weeks before day "D" create a change docket in a change management system.

Fill a couple of 15-pages documents, describing in details what we need to do, why and how.

Obtain approvals from our and their management.

Obtain sign-offs from the downstream systems, even the ones that would not be affected.

Attach all the approvals to the change docket.

Create a task to issue a temporary root password to us.

Send a request to the service delivery manager, asking to approve the task and assign in to a responsible person.

Attend the Change Review Board and get the change approved.

Find out that the task assigned to a wrong group. Reassign.

Find out that in order to get a root password you need to fill a form.

Obtain the form from a Security group.

Fill the form.

Get the form signed by 3 different people in 3 different buildings.

Submit the form.

In a few days get a reply from the Security group, telling that the form was filled incorrectly - a tick was put into a different box.

Fill the form again.

Get the form signed by 3 different people in 3 different buildings.

Submit the form.

After a few day's silence, start nagging the Service Delivery Manager.

Find out that another Security group is responsible for granting root passwords.

Reassign the task to the new group and forward the form to them.

After a few day's silence, start nagging the Service Delivery Manager.

Find out that yet anotherUser Admin Security Group is responsible for granting the root passwords.

Reassign the task to the new group and forward the form to them.

Find out that the submitted form is outdated. The User Admin Security Group no longer accepts outdated forms. (The form that those guys themselves sent 3 weeks ago was outdated).

Download the new form. The difference with the old one is just that the checkboxes are positioned differently.

Fill the form again.

Get the form signed.

Submit the form.

Find out that the form hasn't changed for the last 4 years.

****
Now I think that those guys are actually Vogons.

“They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters."The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams